Children and Adoption Bill [Lords] - Standing Committee B

[Mr. Jimmy Hood in the Chair]

Children and Adoption Bill [Lords]

Maria Eagle: I beg to move,
That—
(1) during proceedings on the Children and Adoption Bill [Lords] the Standing Committee shall (in addition to its first meeting at 10.30 a.m. on Tuesday 14th March) meet—
(a) at 4.00 p.m. on Tuesday 14th March;
(b) at 9.00 a.m. and 1.00 p.m. on Thursday 16th March;
(2) the proceedings shall be taken in the following order: Clauses 9 to 14; Clauses 1 to 4; Schedule 1; Clauses 5 to 8; Clause 15; Schedules 2 and 3; Clauses 16 and 17; new Clauses; new Schedules; remaining proceedings on the Bill;
(3) the proceedings shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion at 4.00 p.m. on Thursday 16th March.
I begin, Mr. Hood, by saying how pleased we all are to serve under your chairmanship. I am sure that you will take your usual firm but cheerful approach to keeping us in order. I hope and trust that we will not need your guidance too often; we will do our best to stay in order without having to resort to your good offices. I look forward also to the excellent chairmanship of your co-Chairman, Mr. Hancock.
It is always a pleasure to open a debate on children. That is especially so today, given the high standard of debate on Second Reading, when we heard a wide variety of considered contributions. I look forward to hearing more in Committee. I see no reason why that should not be the case, and I am glad of the chance to consider the Bill in much greater detail. It was certainly the case when winding up that debate. I am sure that the hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs. Miller), who made her first wind-up speech then, thought that time passed rather quickly while she did so. I certainly think that that was the case. The Committee stage will give us the opportunity to consider the Bill’s specific provisions in more detail.
I am pleased to say that the programme motion does not include any knives. Members of the Committee have no need to feel suspicious that some kind of manipulation is going on. That does not always make it easier for Ministers, but no one said that Committee work was intended to do that. However, it will enable all hon. Members fully to debate those points that they consider to be most important. In focusing on those aspects of the Bill, I hope that we can do them justice.
I am extremely pleased to share my role in Committee with my right hon. Friend the Minister for Children and Families. After a quick glance behind me, I see that we have an excellent team of knowledgeable Back Benchers, each of whom has shown a long-standing interest and commitment to children’s matters in respect of this and other legislation. I shall leave it to the hon. Member for East  Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) to say what he wishes about his Back Benchers; I look forward to hearing it.

Tim Loughton: I echo the Minister’s words of welcome to you, Mr. Hood. I have not sat under your chairmanship for some while, so I may need to be reminded of how strict you can be. I look forward to Mr. Hancock sharing the chairmanship.
I reiterate what the Minister said about the well informed and well balanced debate on Second Reading. We may not agree on a lot of fundamental issues—I guess that we still will not agree by the end of the Committee—but we will have aired our differences. We certainly have a well informed Committee to help us achieve that. I am particularly pleased to see the hon. Member for Stockport (Ann Coffey) in the Committee. She was a member of the pre-legislative scrutiny Committee on the Bill, and she built up a wealth of experience on children and adoption issues well before my time in the House.

Ann Coffey: I am not that old.

Tim Loughton: I speak of seniority of parliamentary experience, not necessarily age, I hasten to add.
I am delighted to be joined on the Front Bench by my hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke, who had an excellent debut when she wound up on Second Reading and who has had to become an expert on things all things to do with children. I am pleased to welcome my hon. Friend the Member for Rugby and Kenilworth (Jeremy Wright). He brings his experience as a lawyer and barrister to the Committee, which means that, unlike in his previous career, he may speak for a long time but not necessarily be paid for it. I welcome also my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough (Mr. Jackson). I understand that he is a Standing Committee virgin, so I hope that the Minister will be gentle with him. He will of course be kept in good order by my hon. Friend the Member for Bexleyheath and Crayford (Mr. Evennett), who is doing the whipping. I am slightly disappointed that the hon. and learned Member for Redcar (Vera Baird) is not among our number. She played a vociferous role on Second Reading and has tabled amendments. Her presence will be felt, if not physically.
The subject is familiar territory to many of us. Those of us who served on the Committee that considered the Adoption and Children Act 2002 will see that some things that appear in this Bill are perhaps left over from that legislation, which is a good Act. It has achieved much on adoption and contains references to inter-country adoption, which forms part of this Bill. I am pleased that the inter-country adoption parts of the Bill are to be debated first, because coming at the end of the Bill they did not have the airing that they deserved in the upper House. They raise important issues and if we put them at the beginning of our deliberations we can do them the justice that they require.
I am also very pleased that the programme motion does not contain any knives. In the various pieces of legislation to do with children with which the Minister  and I have been involved in recent months and years, we have shown that strict guillotines and knives are not required to promote good healthy debate in Committee, let alone on the Floor of the House. We intend to concentrate on aspects of the Bill that we think deserve a greater airing. The absence of knives enables us to do that for the benefit of all members of the Committee.
As you are aware, Mr. Hood, we are concerned that we do not have as many days in Committee as we had anticipated and requested through the usual channels. However, I understand that if our deliberations take longer than the four sittings allocated, we may be able to extend them into next week. I am grateful for the indication by the Government Whips that that facility will be available, even if it means that we will further detain you, Mr. Hood, and Mr. Hancock.
I am also concerned by the substantial number of amendments that have not been selected for debate. By my reckoning, 20 Conservative amendments were not allowed, against 18 that were. I have never served on a Committee where so many amendments have not been selected, especially as the vast majority of them were debated in the upper Chamber. I hope that we can rely on a bit of licence from the Chair to refer to areas germane to the amendments that we had hoped to debate. Those matters will be relevant to clauses, and perhaps we can discuss them at the appropriate time, through the facility of the clause stand part debate.
We concentrated on the word “reasonable,” as associated with the mentions of contact, and it is not, strictly speaking, one of the things that we are going to debate. There are other such issues. I particularly hope that we can encompass within our debates on clauses this morning the amendment on private foster arrangements that I championed in previous Bills. It has not been selected, although it was debated in the upper Chamber. The provisions on inter-country adoption have a direct link to private fostering and the potential for it to expand. In the additional time that we might have to discuss the subject by giving priority to the international adoption clauses, I hope that I can refer to private fostering and the Bill’s implications for it.
Inevitably, much of the Bill is very complicated, as are most Bills that amend existing legislation—large swathes of the Bill are about amending the Children Act 1989. Much of it does not just tinker with odd words here and there and insert additional lines, but goes to the fundamental principles of what we think is a serious weakness in the whole system of contact in the courts. We therefore think that the system needs to be turned on its head and for the Bill to contain references to a presumption of reasonable contact, rather than presuming that that is what the courts are doing already and taking it as read.
If there were not a serious problem with the way in which the courts operate and children are treated when families break up, we would not have the Bill. Clearly there is a problem, which the Government have acknowledged and we have sought to highlight for some time. We therefore need to ensure that the Bill not only addresses that problem, but addresses it with  effective practical solutions that will make a difference. Having a nice debate about the problems within the court system and coming up with a few solutions that are pretty toothless will not solve the problem, although it may assuage the consciences of Ministers who have been lobbied about it for some time.
I am also concerned that we should not address these amendments as legal anoraks. There are quite a few lawyers on the Committee. I am not a lawyer, I hasten to add. My training is in Mesopotamian archaeology, which is eminently more useful for parliamentary matters than training as a highly paid lawyer. There has been a feeling among people who view themselves as victims of the court system that there is a cosiness between the legal professionals and those concerned with the court, and that as long as the system appears to be working okay for them, then it is okay for everybody else.
The problem is that too many families are being failed by the system. We often quote a figure, which the Government challenge, and the figures vary. However, whether it is 40, 30 or 28 per cent., an awful lot of non-resident parents lose contact with their children within two years of a family break-up. That has enormous implications for the welfare of those children, let alone the sanity and well-being of the parents who suffer from traumatic and acrimonious splits. That is why we want to spend a lot of time on the need for the presumption of reasonable contact to be written into the Bill.
Reasonable contact needs to be properly monitored and the whole court system needs to be speeded up so that if there is a dispute between parents, it is resolved as quickly as possible. The longer a dispute drags on, and the longer the children involved are frozen out of their relationship with the parent who does not have custody, the more likely it is that that relationship will suffer. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy that non-custodial parents are not up to looking after the children if that contact is lost and the children feel isolated from them.
We are all agreed, and I sure that you agree, too, Mr. Hood, that there is no better environment—

Jimmy Hood: Order. I am trying to be as generous as possible with the hon. Gentleman, but will he come back to the programme motion? The disappointment that he expresses is a matter for him, but I am sure that he will not challenge the ruling of the Chair on the selection of amendments. I should point out, however, that many of the issues that concern him are covered in new clause 4.

Tim Loughton: Thank you, Mr. Hood. Of course I was not challenging the sagacity of the Chair in the selection of amendments; I was merely expressing my disappointment that we had to change our tactics and approach. I have made the points that I wanted to, and am grateful for the leeway that you have given me. What is important is that the Committee has time to explore the principles behind the Bill. The issues are large and there are sizeable differences between the  Government and the Opposition. With the proviso that we hope that extra time will be added, we will not oppose the motion.

Annette Brooke: I am sure that serving on the Committee will be a great pleasure. Certainly, it is the first time that I have served under your chairmanship, Mr. Hood. I also look forward to the chairmanship of my colleague, Mr. Mike Hancock.
I should like to give the apologies of my hon. Friend the Member for Ceredigion (Mark Williams)—pronouncing his constituency is my first challenge of the day—for not being here. He is serving on another Committee.
I appreciate the reasons for putting the clauses relating to international adoption first, but I put down a marker that if I had had any idea of that I would have made sure that my researcher submitted our amendments on Friday. The decision presented difficulties for a smaller party, especially as the leading Committee member was tied up all day on Thursday. I hope that there will be some tolerance in our clause stand part debates because making up that deficit has clearly been impossible, since I did not discover that there was a problem until late yesterday afternoon.
I also have a slight issue with the fact that some amendments were not selected. I will make a few general points and keep in order, but I may need more guidance. I had reached the point at which I was confident in submitting amendments, knowing that the precise wording would be challenged, but that the principle could be debated. I understand entirely when amendments are ruled out of order because they are not necessary, in the wrong order or in the wrong position in the Bill. That is crystal clear. However, I am not clear about the situation when something is ruled out because of the wording. Again, hopefully we can pick up the points in the clause stand part debate.

Jimmy Hood: Order. I am sure that we will pick up many points as we proceed, but I am sure that the hon. Lady is not challenging the Chairman’s ruling.

Annette Brooke: Of course not. I am hoping to get some support on tabling amendments, which would be helpful in the circumstances.
Briefly, because I appreciate, Mr. Hood, that you do not want long speeches at this stage, there are important principles to be discussed. I have listened carefully and have heard voices asking for something in the Bill that reflects what most people believe is desirable—contact with both parents. I look forward to discussing that principle. Liberal Democrat Members will make child safety our absolute priority.

Question put and agreed to.

Jimmy Hood: I should like to remind hon. Members that adequate notice should be given of amendments, as a general rule. I and my fellow  Chairman do not intend to call starred amendments, including any starred amendments that may be reached during an afternoon sitting.

Clause 9 - Declaration of special restrictions on adoptions from abroad

Tim Loughton: I beg to move amendment No. 41, in clause 9, page 13, line 29, at end insert—
‘(c)prescribed organisations involved in adoption.’.

Jimmy Hood: With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments: No. 42, in clause 9, page 13, line 33, after ‘country’, insert
‘to include regular reviews on why that declaration should still apply’.
No. 43, in clause 10, page 14, line 17, at end insert—
‘(c)prescribed organisations involved in adoption.’.

Tim Loughton: As I said, we are starting with overseas adoptions. The clause deals with the ability of the Secretary of State to deem that people from the UK cannot adopt children from certain countries.
Amendments Nos. 41 and 43 are worded in the same way and would add an additional consultee from
“prescribed organisations involved in adoption”
to the other named bodies that the Secretary of State is required to consult before issuing such an order. Amendment No. 42 would ensure that once a decision is made it is reviewed regularly and not just forgotten about.
I shall talk generally about why the amendments are required and what I think that the Government are trying to do. We broadly support them in trying to firm up the law on abuses of inter-country adoption. The problem was brought into the public consciousness by the abuse of international adoption procedures in the wake of the tsunami, and by certain Cambodian adoption cases that have come to light. In July last year, Mr. Justice Munby ruled that the Government’s existing ban on adoptions from Cambodia was lawful, and mentioned concerns about possible child trafficking and improper payments in the Cambodian adoptions system. It was suggested that one way of dealing with elicit adoptions from Cambodia would be to take up the offer from British embassy officials, who recommended that a special official could be posted in Cambodia to investigate the background of children matched with British couples to ensure that they were being adopted legitimately and not by people whose intentions were far from beneficial for those children.
The situation in Cambodia is rather sad. In the last year for which figures are available, there were 670,000 orphans under the age of 18—more than 5 per cent. of the population. Some 30,000 of those were AIDS orphans under the age of 15. The UN estimated that as many as 300,000 Cambodian children would become AIDS orphans by 2005. That is a very distressing figure and shows the problems that many countries, particularly developing countries, have with looking after orphaned children.
It is worth pointing out that when we discussed international adoption in our proceedings on the 2002 Act, various measures were taken to tighten up the procedures by which children are brought into this country. Prospective adopters now have to apply through the local authorities or adoption agencies, receive certificates of eligibility, and so on. That Act tightened up the law, and the Secretary of State took powers to ban adoptions if they were “contrary to public policy”—I think that that was the wording.
At the time, the Minister who faced me during deliberations on that Bill—she is now the Minister for Schools—said, and we agree:
“We acknowledge that intercountry adoption can be an extremely valuable placement choice for some children. It is in line with international conventions to which we are a signatory.”
All of us recognise that overseas adoptions are beneficial in many cases, particularly where there are an awful lot of orphans who otherwise might be consigned to miserable existences. There is a problem, however, in that the number of overseas adoptions in this country is very low. The clause therefore appears to be trying to address a relatively small problem, and we do not want to throw out the baby with the bathwater.
Last year, there were approximately 25,000 adoptions internationally, of which 15,000 took place in the United States, which is by far the biggest adopter of overseas children. Other countries are some way behind that. France adopted 3,600 children from overseas and Norway adopted 600. Yet the figure in this country is only 300, and has been at about 300 for some time. As things stand, not many children from overseas are actually adopted by UK couples into the UK.
The reasons for that are numerous. One may be that we have a slightly better domestic adoption system than France, where there is not so much domestic adoption. Part of the problem, however, is that adoption from overseas is a bureaucratic, long drawn-out, cumbersome and costly process. It can cost up to £10,000 to adopt a child from overseas and the system is already very tight.
I understand that the Secretary of State already has the power to ban countries from the adoption list, but clause 9 and the following clauses seek to formalise that arrangement. We agree with that, but unlike many other countries the UK has no adoption agency, and that is part of the problem—we rely on the Secretary of State to make the decision, in consultation with the Welsh Assembly and other United Kingdom bodies, whereas in other countries it would be made by a specialist international adoption agency with all sorts of expertise and input from professionals working around the world. That is a weakness, and unfortunately the Government have not taken on board the idea of separating out the powers of the Secretary of State into a separate international adoption agency in this country.
For that reason, it is all the more important that, if the Secretary of State is to ban a country for adoption purposes, he should do so with the maximum information available to him and after maximum consultation with all the powers that be. For obvious  reasons, that list of consultees must include the National Assembly for Wales and the Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety in Northern Ireland, as set down in clause 9(5)—we do not dispute that. Nowhere in the Bill, however, is the Secretary of State obliged to consult more widely.
In amendments Nos. 41 and 43, which could be termed probing amendments, we suggest that the Secretary of State should have an obligation to consult other named bodies that are skilled in adoption, and in particular international adoption. One such body is the British Association for Adoption and Fostering, with which all hon. Members are familiar, and there are other renowned, long-standing adoption agencies that have great experience of dealing with international adoption. They should be put on a list of bodies with which the Secretary of State should speak. We do not want a country put on a banned list just because some political furore blows up there.
Action should be taken purely in the interests of the child’s welfare. That is what adoption is all about. It is not about the convenience of the parents, nor about helping the political system of a particular country, but about promoting the welfare of a child who happens to be overseas, rather than here, if it is deemed that a loving, adoptive family from the UK is capable of providing a better home.
As I said on Second Reading, the figures for the countries from which adoptions are made are pretty lopsided. Of the total number of international adoptions—about 3,000 in the past 10 years—1,441 or approximately half have come from China. Some 98 per cent. of those 1,441 were baby girls, which is a comment on the value that Chinese society places on them. I also mentioned that the figure for China is way ahead of the figure for the country from which the next highest amount of adoptions come, which is India with 235. India is followed by Guatemala with 205, and the figure for Cambodia during the past 10 years is 67.
The amendments would ensure that the Secretary of State is absolutely convinced of his case before countries are put on the banned list. We must also be sure that if a country is placed on a banned list, whether it should stay on the banned list will be under constant review. At what stage will Cambodia, for example, be restored to the list of countries from which children may be adopted? The Minister might like to use that as a case in point, because Cambodia is the main country that has given rise to the proposed legislation. The situation applies also to Romania, although I think that Romania was banned by an EU decision rather than one instigated at home.
How much evidence is required to prove that the system is not working properly and that child trafficking, not genuine adoption, is taking place? Where will the burdens of proof be, and where will that information be found? It is slightly worrying that we need separate legislation to prevent child trafficking, because many other laws and regulations, which I hope are working, are aimed at preventing it. Border controls are better now, one hopes. Are they still not sufficient? I have serious qualms. The Conservative  party tabled amendments to the recent Children Bill and to the Adoption and Children Bill about ensuring that minors who arrive at ports of entry unaccompanied by their parents or people with parental responsibility are looked at closely by immigration officials and local social services before being allowed on their way.
Gatwick airport is in West Sussex, and I am told by social services representatives there, who now work closely with immigration officials at the airport, that by far the largest amount of unaccompanied minors now arriving come from China. Too many of them then disappear into the system, ending up as goodness knows what—we do not know whether they are being trafficked or abused. A lot more must be done to ensure that those children are properly identified and that their subsequent journeys are properly logged.

Ann Coffey: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that part of the difficulty lies with countries whose Governments are not making a huge effort to create robust systems to deal with trafficking in the country—where parents are offered money in exchange for children—or to reunite abandoned children with their parents? We agree that information from those countries for the Department of Health is important, which is why, as he said, having specialist UK adoption agencies that are in contact with agencies in other countries is an important way forward.

Tim Loughton: The hon. Lady is absolutely right. It is clear that we must have as much specialist information as possible that is properly gathered, interpreted and passed on to the relevant authorities—in this case the Secretary of State.
The Government could do a lot by working with social services in other countries—there are international social services—particularly when dealing with west African children. The majority of private fostering arrangements in this country appear to be made with Nigeria and Sierra Leone. We have had the problem in my constituency of girls from those two countries arriving at Gatwick airport as minor asylum seekers and going into the care of social services having been trafficked by people who have threatened them with voodoo curses and all sorts. They were placed with foster parents by social services but were then whisked away by what were, in effect, pimps, and many of the girls ended up in the sex trade in northern Italy—in Milan, for example.
Fortunately, the problem went away for a time, because a lot of work was done by the Home Office, Sussex police and West Sussex social services to attack the problem at the entry port, Gatwick airport. However, it has not gone away completely; it has just moved location. If more work was done with people in the country from which the children came in the first place to determine whether they were being trafficked or were genuinely being adopted, there would be fewer problems.
The proposals in amendments Nos. 41 and 43 would require the Government to consult stakeholders before making the decision to impose special restrictions, as recommended in the report of the pre-legislative scrutiny Committee, as the hon. Member for Stockport will remember.
There is some confusion about how the Bill will affect those countries that have signed and ratified the convention and those that have not. There is a discrepancy between the Minister and her right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary. In reply to a written question tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May), the Minister said:
“The 1967 European Convention on the Adoption of Children aims to harmonise the laws in contracting states to promote the welfare of children who are adopted. However, the convention does not provide for international recognition of adoptions made in the UK, or in any other country.”—[Official Report, House of Commons, 11 October 2005; Vol. 437, c. 450W.]
In a letter dated 1 April 2005 to Felicity Collier, who until recently was chief executive of British Association for Adoption and Fostering, the Foreign Secretary stated that his officials had checked with the
“Council of Europe who confirmed our understanding that adoption orders are fully recognised between member states that have ratified the European Convention on the Adoption of Children.”
There seems to be a discrepancy about the status of adoptions in respect of countries that have or have not ratified the convention.
What will be the status of the provision for decisions made by the Secretary of State in the context of decisions made by the European Union? When Romania was suspended from adoptions, the decision was made by the EU and presumably we were obliged to follow it. Does the EU list override our list? Does our list automatically form part of the EU list? Will the Minister clarify the countries that may be trapped in that respect? Will we be subject to bans on countries with which we, but not European countries, have a healthy and long-standing adoption relationship—Commonwealth countries, for example? Some European countries may once or twice have fallen foul of instances of child trafficking in other countries and therefore sought to add them to the list. Again, that could lead to a conflict of interest.
At what stage will a potential adopter be forced to abort the adoption process for a child coming from a country that then goes on to the list? If they have started the process of getting the entitlements cleared in this country and are still going through the international reporting mechanisms with a specialist social worker, or whatever, and the other country is banned, will those prospective adopters still be allowed to adopt, will they be thwarted and have to wait for however many years until that country is taken off the list, or will they have to start again with another country?
There are some serious concerns for people who are trying to adopt from another country or are looking to do so. I would appreciate some more detail, because there is not a lot of detail in this part of the Bill and much will be left to regulations. The Minister would  help enormously if she gave much clearer and more detailed examples of how this legislation is likely to work.
Finally, Mr. Hood, I want to touch on why it is disappointing—not to argue with your decision—that our amendment on private fostering was not selected. I fear that if people are thwarted in adopting somebody in a banned country, they may go down the private fostering route. If that is so, the child will be brought to the UK on a temporary permit, or whatever, and placed with distant relatives or with people of no connection at all as part of a private fostering arrangement, particularly through Nigeria and Sierra Leone, as happened in the Victoria Climbié case.
If a legitimate route of adoption is closed off, people may seek to exploit a private adoption route, which cannot be in the interests of that child if it then disappears from the radar. Many hon. Members are concerned about those children, who may number in excess of 10,000; but that is only an estimate because they are off the radar. As high-profile cases have shown, those children are potentially the most vulnerable to abuse and violence. They need to be found, identified and scrutinised, and all the support of local children’s services must be brought to bear to ensure that they are in genuine relationships and genuinely harmless surroundings. Some of us believe that the only way to achieve that is to make private fostering a fully regulated activity, with penalties for people who fail such children. Many Labour Members have expressed their support for that and many professionals and organisations involved have supported it for a long time. I fear that the clause could give rise to private fostering arrangements that most of us want to see clamped down on, if not eradicated, so it is unfortunate that we will not have the opportunity to replace it with a new clause.
The amendments are helpful and aim to ensure that the Secretary of State does his job with as much information as possible and that, when he makes a decision to place a country on the banned list for good reasons, it is kept under review. That provision is allowed for in clause 10—
“The Secretary of State must keep under review ... whether it should continue to be a restricted country”—
but he needs to report on that review. He may look at a country and say, “We don’t need to make any changes”, but he needs to make a statement, annually, or whatever it takes, about whether it should remain on the banned list because certain conditions have not been met that were set out at the time it was included on the list, or because certain improvements in the way children, who can be spirited away from their homes, are looked after have still not been addressed. He needs to report on what assistance the British Government are providing, through him and the Secretary of State for International Development, to Governments in such countries to spruce up their act, because it is not in the interests of their citizens that children are being adopted, or trafficked, in less than satisfactory circumstances.
The amendments are helpful and I hope that the Minister will respond to them constructively.

Annette Brooke: I broadly support the hon. Gentleman’s comments, in particular his well made points about calling for wider consultation and independent scrutiny of decisions. We need to achieve the right balance. We are all concerned about child trafficking and other unethical practices, but we need to think about the plight of children in some countries in the developing world and focus throughout on the welfare of the child.
I shall briefly comment on something and promise that I will not raise it again. The Joint Committee on the draft Bill and the Joint Committee on Human Rights recommended that the Bill should require the Secretary of State to have particular regard to the convention on the rights of the child. There is a strong case for including something so that we get the right balance. Of course we want the protection, but we wish to focus on the child throughout.
The hon. Gentleman mentioned private fostering, which we debated at great length in discussions on another Bill, and the points were made well in the other place. I draw the Minister’s attention to Lord Adonis’s comment on private fostering. He said:
“the first statistics from the new monitoring arrangements”
of the notification
“will be available at the end of this month.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 14 November 2005; Vol. 675, c. 944.]
If those statistics were available, it might give us some direction on how necessary it is to push the registration of private fostering at this stage. The case is as strong as ever. Various reports have been put to us at meetings in the House and there is widespread support for registration now, rather than waiting for it. I recall that our argument was that, if it is a good idea in future, it has to be a good idea now.
I emphasise those points on private fostering, because they tie in with the overall issue of adoption. We are closing one loophole but might be opening another, leading to unintended consequences.

Jeremy Wright: May I say what a pleasure it is to serve under your chairmanship, Mr. Hood?
I want briefly to support amendments Nos. 41 and 43 and to highlight a few points in relation to them. I accept the need for the Government to restrict inter-country adoption in certain circumstances, as I am sure all Committee members do. I have no doubt that there will be no dispute about that. It is also right that we should recollect and keep it in mind that it is possible to do that in the right circumstances. However, it is important, as the amendments indicate, that the Government take into account as much available information as they can and keep the situation under regular review, as my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham said.
Amendments Nos. 41 and 43 propose that the Government should take into account information from those who know most about the situation on the  ground. There are two reasons why that is important. First, those operating within the charitable sector, or non-governmental organisations working either directly with international adoption or on broader child welfare issues, are likely to know a great deal more about the fast-changing situation on the ground in those countries. They will perhaps have that information more quickly than the Government and in more detail. It would therefore be sensible for the Government to take that information into account as quickly as it becomes available in order to make an up-to-date decision.
Secondly, the information coming from NGOs in particular may be of use because it is possible that they can gather information that the Government find it difficult to gather. They will be able to establish relationships with delivery organisations in countries where the Governments are not willing to communicate with our Government.
I simply want to endorse what has been said about amendments Nos. 41 and 43, and commend them to the Committee.

Maria Eagle: I congratulate hon. Members who have taken part in the debate. We have had a wide-ranging discussion. I will deal with some of the points that have been raised, but want to set out what we think the amendments do and the Government’s response to them.
As has been said, amendments Nos. 41 and 43 are similar, although they relate to different jurisdictions. They both require the Secretary of State to consult prescribed adoption organisations—we can assume the usual list of local authorities, voluntary agencies and stakeholder groups—before making a declaration of special restrictions on adoptions from a particular country.
The hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham suggested that the situation that arose in Cambodia in 2004 might be a good example. It is, of course, the only one at present that we can use to inform the debate on what would be useful in terms of process. The Minister for Children suspended inter-country adoptions from Cambodia on 22 June 2004, partly because of concerns about what was going on in respect of adoption which went much wider than the organisations that I assume would be on the proposed prescribed lists. There was evidence on the systematic falsification of official documents relating to adoption and on the extent of the involvement of adoption facilitators in the adoption procedures in Cambodia, even though those were expressly forbidden in Cambodian law.
There was also evidence relating to the procurement of children for inter-country adoption by facilitators, including the use of coercion and concerns about the prevalence of children trafficking and corruption generally. It was not just in this country that those views were taken; there is a list of countries that have taken a similar view about the good sense or otherwise of allowing inter-country adoption from Cambodia. Many countries suspended the process before we did—  some as early as 2001—so there was widespread concern throughout the world about what was happening there.
I agree absolutely that it is important that the powers that clauses 9 to 12 give to the Secretary of State are not used without due process and without proper consideration of the effect. There is no doubt about that. If I say a little about the evidence gathering that took place prior to that decision it may assist both the hon. Member for Rugby and Kenilworth and the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham. I know that the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke) also has a long-standing interest in the matter and made reference to it.
Such decisions will not be made on a whim. There clearly needs to be information and evidence for the Secretary of State to be able to make a decision about special restrictions. On the Cambodian example, evidence was gathered by the British embassy from other countries, some of which had already suspended adoptions from Cambodia by the time the decision was taken to do so in Britain, and from NGOs, particularly the kind of organisation that the hon. Member for Rugby and Kenilworth mentioned. For the reasons that he set out, such organisations can have better intelligence about precisely what is going on, and perhaps pick up concerns ahead even of the embassy. I hesitate to say that, because the Foreign Office has already been cited and our embassies have good information about what is going on in the countries in which they are located. Evidence is also taken, of course, from human rights organisations.
My slight concern about the idea of a prescribed list is that organisations with relevant knowledge may vary from country to country. There are certain circumstances in which a list of whom we would have to consult would not be wide enough to cover everybody.

Maria Miller: I am pleased to serve on the Committee, Mr. Hood.
On the Minister’s point, there is no right of appeal for those countries where we decide to restrict adoptions. Does the Minister agree that there needs to be more consultation and transparency in the process to ensure that the reasons why a country has been excluded are clear to all concerned?

Maria Eagle: I am coming to that. We need a balance; the purpose of having such powers is the safeguarding of children. We must ensure that, in seeking to be fair and clear, that step is taken and we do not compromise the safety of children in any way. Simply because children may be coming from other countries does not mean that our standards of safeguarding their well-being should be any lower. There is always a balance to be struck between the length of time for which one considers information, the extent to which one wishes to consult and the extent to which one needs to take action to safeguard children, which is an important issue and must be at the forefront of our minds.
Clause 9 requires the Secretary of State to consult the National Assembly for Wales and the Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety in Northern Ireland before making a declaration of special restrictions. That is because adoption is a devolved policy area. The requirement is entirely appropriate in view of the fact that such a declaration will have a direct effect on those countries and jurisdictions. Such consultations are undertaken relatively often and do not cause delay. They represent good inter-governmental administrative practice, and civil servants across Whitehall know how best to make such consultations. The provision is not specifically about the wider consultations but about good governance between the different jurisdictions in the UK.
Although I fully understand the desire of the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham and other members of the Committee to offer consultation to a wider group of stakeholders, we must consider the safeguarding of children. The primary focus must be the protection of the children involved. There may be situations in which a requirement to consult widely among stakeholders outside the Government could have unfortunate implications for the welfare of children, through a delay in introducing special restrictions or by triggering a rush to adopt before such restrictions are introduced. We must ensure that we have sufficient leeway to make the restrictions work. That is not to say that I disagree with the idea that we should take into account what is going on on the ground and talk to those involved in the way that I have described. We did that in respect of Cambodia and would intend to do so in any other situation that were to arise.

Tim Loughton: I am listening to the hon. Lady, but why would ringing up or sending an e-mail to BAAF, as I have done, or to the specialist officer at the Local Government Association to ask their opinion on inter-country adoption take any longer than going through the whole rigmarole of consulting the National Assembly for Wales and the Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety in Northern Ireland? The delay argument does not wash.

Maria Eagle: The hon. Gentleman’s amendment suggests that we include a requirement for a list of prescribed organisations that should be consulted. It sounds bureaucratic to me. He says that it might mean an e-mail or a phone call, but I can think of few organisations consulted by the Government which would accept that that counts as consultation. Our views on the practicalities are not widely separated. We recognise that there are situations in which it would be possible to consult the relevant stakeholders and, as I have tried to illustrate in respect of the Cambodia case, we searched for sources for information. Some information sources gave rise to concerns that led to the decision being made. We wish to work without compromising the welfare of children.

Jeremy Wright: What the Minister says may be contradictory. She cannot have it both ways: either our proposals would be far too onerous and bureaucratic, or the Government are already implementing them. It cannot be both.

Maria Eagle: If the proposals of the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham were absolutely clear, I might be able to agree with him. He suggested that there may just be an e-mail, whereas his amendment sounds like a bureaucratic list of prescribed organisations. A list of prescribed organisations that must be consulted rarely suggests to me as a relatively junior Minister, although of some experience these days, that consultation could be done quickly and without a certain amount of bureaucracy.
The hon. Member for Rugby and Kenilworth makes a lawyer’s point—that is another lawyer saying that to him, so I hope he will forgive me. To be fair to him, arguably there has been a lack of clarity from Opposition and Government Members. I am being kind this morning. In practice, we are probably not saying much that is terribly different. The Government are not suggesting that the Secretary of State should get up one morning and on a whim prescribe that there be no more inter-country adoptions from a certain country. That will not happen in practice.
Although I accept the concerns that the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham and his amendments display about properly taking into account the understandings of those who are active in this field in the country concerned, that does not require us to accept an amendment that would create potentially onerous obligations concerning prescribed lists.
Amendment No. 42 tries to ensure that the Secretary of State publishes regular reviews of why special restrictions should continue to apply to a particular country. Clause 10 provides for reviewing whether countries should continue to be restricted, and, where appropriate, for removing those restrictions. It is an important provision, and we intend to be responsive to events and changes in the countries concerned.
Clause 9 requires the Secretary of State to publish her reasons for placing a country on the restricted list. The hon. Gentleman confirmed that his amendment’s intention is to require publications of subsequent reviews of each restricted country. Where there are substantial obstacles to the proper operation of a child-focused adoption system in a restricted country, the special restrictions might need to remain in place for a significant period. For example, we have not seen much progress in Cambodia in the 20 months since the restrictions were placed on it.
Although the hon. Gentleman is right that where there is a material change we should ensure that we notify interested parties and provide clear and accessible information about the latest position of countries under special restriction, it would not be flexible to require periodic reviews after pre-determined lengths of time. We expect that before the situation in Cambodia can change, there needs to be a  significant development, such as new adoption legislation or accession to The Hague convention. Although we have kept in touch with the situation in Cambodia via the embassy, no significant changes to date have warranted a review.
I understand the hon. Gentleman’s concern about ensuring that those with an interest know what is happening about any special restrictions that apply. We would not necessarily want reviews every few months, because that might be overly ambitious in countries where serious changes need to be made. It might take some time, but when there is a material change, it will certainly be the Government’s intention to make available information about restricted countries. If Cambodia were suddenly to accede to the convention or to make changes to the law that would make a difference to the restrictions on adoption from that country, we would certainly tell those people with an interest that it had happened.

Maria Miller: Part of the reason why we are debating part 2 first is that it might have been felt in the other place to have had insufficient debate, because it came at the end of proceedings. I should like to raise a further point with the Minister. It was acknowledged in Committee in the other place that in the vast majority of cases the agreed international criteria of the UN convention on the rights of the child and The Hague convention would be followed. When does the Minister envisage that they would not be? Lord Adonis said that they would be followed in the vast majority of cases. Will the Minister take a moment to clarify that for me? I should be most interested in her response.

Maria Eagle: I suspect that my noble Friend was seeking to ensure that he did not place any unthought-of fetter on the Secretary of State’s discretion. We could all think of some circumstances in which it might be the case that that would not cover all eventualities, but at this moment I am struggling to find out what they would be—[Interruption.]

Tim Loughton: There is one example coming.

Maria Eagle: It is not an awful lot of help; it merely says that we have had only one example so far, which we all know. I suspect that my noble Friend was using careful Minister-speak to ensure that he did not fetter the Secretary of State’s potential future discretion.
I want to make one or two further points, as I seem to have been on my feet for rather too long. The hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham asked me some questions when moving his amendment, and I shall deal with one or two of them. I cannot remember now whether it was him or the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole, but my hon. Friend the Member for Stockport also made a point about specialist international adoption agencies, and it is worth saying a word about them.
As the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham said, the number of inter-country adoptions in Britain is relatively low—about 350 a year. They  involve many different countries—about 60 or so at the last count. The effectiveness of an inter-country adoption agency is at its best when it has an office in the country where the adoptions are made. By saying that 350 adoptions are made from 60 different countries, I hope that I have shown the Committee the potential difficulty. Should the agency have 60 officers? It is not necessarily the best way to deal with a small number of cases from a great number of countries. Obviously, that would be most likely to have some impact in China, but China recognises only Governments, not agencies.

Ann Coffey: Adoption is a stressful process for most would-be adopters. Domestic adoption is stressful enough, but inter-country adoption has additional factors. Although I accept entirely the Minister’s views on the effectiveness of an agency placed in the country from which the child will come, does she not accept that there is also an argument for having agencies in this country to provide specialist help and additional support to would-be adopters? Perhaps people who handle domestic adoption do not accumulate that degree of expertise.

Maria Eagle: I think that my hon. Friend would acknowledge that there are many excellent inter-country adoption charities in the UK that assist people in that way. They can play an important role, but at present I am not convinced that a specialist agency would be the right way forward, given the numbers that we have in this country and the many different countries with which we are dealing—with a small number of cases from most.
The hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham made a point about the 1967 convention. I can tell him my understanding of the position, which I am confident is the correct one: the convention, which aimed to put common standards in place for adoption, does not require recognition of adoptions. [Interruption.] I am just telling the hon. Gentleman my very strong understanding of the position and I shall say no more than that.
A number of hon. Members have said that if we get this wrong we shall see an increase in private fostering. However, members of the Committee should remember that it will be an offence to bring a child into this country if to do so would be in breach of the special restrictions. Unless, therefore, people are willing to commit criminal offences, we should not see them bringing in children from countries to which special restrictions apply. That should deal with what is, as the hon. Gentleman said and we should all recall, a small problem in a small number of places. We have only one example so far, which is Cambodia, and, as he said, there are only 300 or so cases in a year.

Tim Loughton: On that specific subject, my understanding was that the EU had placed Romania on the banned list, and that that covers adoption into the UK. I asked about the relationship between what is banned by the EU and what is banned in the UK by the Secretary of State.

Maria Eagle: My understanding was that it was Romania itself that banned adoptions from Romania, rather than that a ban was imposed on it, so that point did not arise. The hon. Gentleman shakes his head, but that is my understanding and if I am wrong then no doubt we can take it up outside the Committee.
I have sympathy with the points of substance in the proposed amendments, but the Government do not feel that they are necessary to make sure that the special restrictions operate properly. I welcome the fact that everyone who has spoken has recognised the need for the Government to have power to impose special restrictions in order to safeguard children in certain circumstances–which we all accept will be rare. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will consider withdrawing his amendments on the basis of the assistance I have given.

Tim Loughton: I am a bit disappointed, because although the Minister is suffering from the lurgy this morning, she did not address several of the points that I raised, and some of the questions were left hanging in the air.
 The Minister gave us a couple of rough examples of why there was a problem with Cambodia. We need to know that a country would not be put on the list for political reasons or political instability. I am not clear, either, how a country would come off the list; the Minister said that it might involve accession to the convention, but that can take some time. Is it just a matter of signing the convention, or is ratification needed? I remind the Minister that when the Adoption and Children Bill was introduced, the United Kingdom Government had signed The Hague convention but had not ratified it, and there was quite a gap between the two events.
I am also still unclear about the relationship between the European list and what the Secretary of State provides. The argument that the Government will not accede to amendments Nos. 41 and 43 because of the possibility of a delay is a red herring. The Minister said that we banned adoptions from Cambodia in June 2004 and that some countries banned it as long ago as 2001. Those things do not happen overnight and can take quite a long time. Admittedly, we need to expedite that process, but I cannot understand the objection to going to a bit of extra trouble by consulting a prescribed list of bodies.
The list should not be Uncle Tom Cobleigh and all, but there is enough unanimity among the adoption community that a small group of recognised organisations and representatives of local authorities, for example, could be put together. Such a group could give a rapid response if the Secretary of State wanted to make a decision on a specific country or countries and, equally importantly, could feed back to the Secretary of State if it felt that there were grounds for adding countries to the list that he had not instigated at that stage. The prescribed list is not a cumbersome process and it need not be time consuming. It could speed up proper consultation. I do not understand how it would take more time than referring to those  bodies that may require regulations to be made or having debates on the matter. I do not buy the Minister’s argument on that one.
Amendment No. 42 would not require reviews to be published every other month, but it would be useful if a decision were reviewed annually as matter of course. If the circumstances were fast moving, it could be reviewed half yearly. Certainly, we are not asking for random reviews every few months. The Secretary of State is, after all, obliged under clause 10 to keep that situation constantly under review. If new evidence comes to light at any stage, we simply ask that the Secretary of State publishes the reasons for his decision changing or not changing as a result.
I started by saying that these were probing amendments. I fear that the Minister has left a lot of questions unanswered. She has certainly left unanswered the large question of whether her opinion or the Foreign Secretary’s opinion takes priority. In the interests of getting the problem sorted out, although not in the interests of enhancing her career, it might be helpful if she and the Foreign Office came up with a standard line. I have had correspondence from people affected by the problem, and I know that she has had correspondence, too, because I have had copies of it. That line needs to be sorted out because there is clearly some confusion.
The key to the problem is that proper information and knowledge should be sought out and made available. Some of us think that we need a national adoption agency that specialises in providing that. That does not mean having individual offices at every one of those 60 countries, such as Azerbaijan, Barbados or Samoa, each of which has yielded one adoptee in the past 10 years. We are asking for it to be taken at arm’s length from the Secretary of State so that he can rely on that body’s expertise to inform him on making the final decision. That decision should be based on the information that it has been able to gather from its experts around the world, which is then integrated with the expertise of British embassies, consulates and high commissions.
At this early stage, I am not going to push the amendment to a vote, although we might like to return to the subject on Report, by which time the Minister can joyfully tell us whether she has resolved her differences with the Foreign Secretary. I therefore beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

David Kidney: It is a delight to serve on a Committee chaired by you, Mr. Hood, with your customary good sense and wisdom.
There were several references to The Hague convention and the UN convention on the rights of the child. Before we decide to approve the clause, can the Minister confirm that she regards it as fully compliant with our international obligations? Both those conventions recognise that a childhood spent within a family environment is in a child’s best interests when  compared with a childhood spent in a non-family environment. Inter-country adoption can be a way of realising that aim. For example, article 21 of the UN convention on the rights of the child contains such a reference.
There is no specific recognition in the Bill that inter-country adoption might be in the best interests of the child. There is no requirement that the Government should balance those factors that they are going to take into account in deciding on special restrictions against the welfare of an individual child and the benefits under the convention of an inter-country adoption. Instead, what we have, effectively, is the Secretary of State empowered to react to perceived problems by adopting a blanket ban. There might be some circumstances in which there will be exceptions, which may be drawn to our attention when we get to clause 11, but at the moment nothing is clear.
As my hon. Friend knows, the Joint Committee that considered the draft Bill recommended strongly that it should refer to those international convention obligations. The Government explained why that recommendation was not accepted immediately and concluded, at paragraph 57 of the response, on page 11:
“We therefore do not accept this recommendation but will give further consideration to how greater clarity may be achieved.”
After that response, the Joint Committee on Human Rights also considered the matter and again repeated the recommendation about putting something in the Bill.
Having given that answer, will the Government give further consideration to how greater clarity can be achieved. Did they conclude their consideration and decide that no greater clarity is required, have they not finished their consideration yet, or have they finished their consideration and decided that there is a need for greater clarity, but that that will not be given in Committee?

Maria Eagle: I first move that the clause stand part of the Bill—

Jimmy Hood: Order. The Chair has moved that the clause stand part of the Bill.

Maria Eagle: Apologies; I am not at my best this morning.
I will try to deal with the points raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Mr. Kidney). He asked whether the clauses were fully compliant with The Hague convention and the UN convention on the rights of the child. We believe them to be fully compliant. Clauses have been developed in consultation with the Permanent Bureau at The Hague Conference, which confirmed that they are fully compliant. We also believe them to be entirely compliant with the UN convention on the rights of the child.
Given the recommendation of the Joint Committee on Human Rights and of the Joint Committee that considered the Bill and our response, which was that we would have another look, my hon. Friend asked  whether we have done so. Following that undertaking, we have completed our consideration. We have decided that referring to any specific international instrument in the Bill is not appropriate, but we are fully confident that it complies in full with both conventions. I hope that that deals with his points and that he is content that the clause stand part of the Bill.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 9 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 10 - Review

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

Tim Loughton: No amendments have been listed for debate under this clause, although amendment No. 43 to the clause was debated under clause 9.
I touched on the subject of review, and asked the Minister to elaborate on when a final order would be made to ban a country, and whether it would apply to people who had started the adoption process for a child in the then-to-be banned country. I also asked how quickly a decision to remove a country from the list would come into effect. Would someone who had started the adoption process and effectively had to suspend it, but who was prepared to carry on goodness knows how many years later, be able to continue, or would they have to go back to first base and start all over again?
We come back to the lack of detail in the Bill and the accompanying notes on the mechanics of how things should work. I hate to put the Minister on the spot again, given her condition this morning—she is performing bravely—but we need more information, and it was not provided in the other place.

Maria Eagle: I shall do my best to deal with that. Clause 10 provides that the Secretary of State must keep restricted countries under review. If she determines that there is “no longer reason” to believe that the practices that resulted in the introduction of special restrictions are still taking place, she must cancel them. Before she does so, she must consult the National Assembly for Wales and the Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety in Northern Ireland, as the special restrictions in question would have effect also in Wales and Northern Ireland.
The hon. Gentleman asked about the specific process, which is particularly important for those engaged in trying to adopt when special restrictions come into force. I shall try to answer him. We recognise that the introduction of special restrictions will be particularly unfortunate for prospective adopters who are in the process of adopting a child from a restricted country. However, we have to balance their distress and disappointment against whatever concerns led to the special safeguarding restrictions.
Special restrictions will not impact on cases that have passed a certain point. Although that might vary from country to country, we expect it to be when the prospective adopter has been matched with a child. When special restrictions are declared, cases that are beyond that point will continue—that is the intention—and all adoptions that have not reached that point will be stopped. However, we have made provisions for cases to be allowed to proceed if the prospective adopters can satisfy the Secretary of State that their case should be an exception. The process will allow people to make their point if they believe that their circumstances mean that the adoption that they were in the process of arranging should continue. The same arrangement was provided in the case of Cambodia, and we believe that a similar approach would be the most appropriate way of dealing with the situation whenever special restrictions have to be introduced.
The hon. Gentleman also asked how quickly a decision to remove a country from the restricted list would come into effect. There is no reason why it should not come into effect as soon as the other jurisdictions have been consulted, which should be extremely quick, or even instantaneous. I think that I have answered his questions and hope that he is content that the clause stand part.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 10 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 11 - The special restrictions

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

Tim Loughton: Again, I do not want to let the clause pass without trying to get further details out of the Minister. In my comments on the amendments to clause 9, I welcomed the fact that there is a provision for special decisions to be made on individual cases. She just alluded to them—for example, if somebody gets caught by the barrier coming down. Will she give examples of who would be captured by the clause, other than those whom we have just discussed, and of which countries would go on the prescribed list?
Who are the beneficiaries of those special exceptions? At what stage will a decision be made to say that those restrictions can be got round? Will that decision be based on some family or friendship contact, or the fact that they come from a part of the country that is not affected? We have lots of definitions of the various bodies mentioned in the clause, but we do not have examples of how widely the Minister anticipates the special restrictions will be introduced and in what circumstances. Some elaboration on how the clause will be used would be helpful.

Jeremy Wright: Following that theme, I, too, would be grateful if the Minister could elaborate, if she can, on subsections (2) and (3), because, as she has already  mentioned, they make provision for prospective adopters to invite and satisfy the relevant authority that there are other circumstances that should permit the adoption to go ahead. Subsection (3) indicates that the Secretary of State may make regulations that provide for the procedure to be followed in those circumstances, and matters that the appropriate authority may take into account.
Clearly, as I am sure the Minister will accept, those will be important matters for prospective adopters, and I would be grateful if she could give us an indication of the sorts of things that the Secretary of State, or any other appropriate authority, will take into account, when such specialist circumstances arise, and when prospective adopters make representations to the appropriate authority.

Beverley Hughes: Although we are well into our first sitting, I should also like to express my pleasure in serving under your chairmanship on this important Bill, Mr. Hood.
As Opposition Members have noted, clause 11 provides for the effect of special restrictions. Where those restrictions have been imposed clearly, the appropriate authority cannot take any further step to bring children, or a child, into the UK from that restricted country. However, the provisions are intended to protect the welfare of the children concerned, not to penalise prospective adopters or to impose blanket restrictions that do not meet the needs of particular children. The provisions are intended to protect particularly vulnerable children in other countries from the abuse of flawed adoption procedures, or other matters of concern.
Clause 11 specifies when there can be exceptions to special restrictions and makes provisions for regulations to specify the procedure by which an exception will be considered. I can give some examples, because I asked the same question myself. From Cambodia, there were 13 cases of children in process, and two were allowed in for special reasons. One had a complexity of health needs that could not have been met in Cambodia, and the other was deaf. For reasons peculiar to those circumstances, the adoption processes of those children were allowed to proceed.
There might be other circumstances in which it would be right to let the adoption process proceed despite the restrictions, such as if a relative were applying to adopt, or if a family had already adopted one child and were in the process of adopting a sibling of that child. There may be concern about the trafficking of very young children or the selling of babies in a particular country, but a child might be of an age that clearly put them outside that category of concern. Once a restriction had been declared and the bar to which my hon. Friend the Minister referred had come down, people who fell below the threshold would be able to apply to the Secretary of State and make a case for their circumstances to be regarded as exceptional.
Those cases will be decided on their merit. They will take into account concerns about the circumstances that led to the restrictions, but most particularly they  will be concerned with the best interests of the children taken in the round, including the situation in the restricted country: the sort of circumstances that I have outlined.
Subsection (3) provides for the Secretary of State to make regulations laying down the procedure that will be followed by the appropriate authority in determining whether it is satisfied by the prospective adopters that their case should be an exception. The Secretary of State is also empowered to make regulations as to what matters the decision maker will take into account in deciding whether a case should be an exception. However, although those parameters will exist, cases will mostly be decided on their merits and on what is fundamentally in the best interests of the children concerned.
Although the Bill provides a statutory framework for the suspension of adoptions on the grounds of public policy, it is also reasonable to include provisions to make exceptions for individual cases that are demonstrably atypical, or where the circumstances are such that it would not be in the interest of the child not to proceed and to allow such cases to come to fruition. The clause augments the Bill’s flexibility and humanity, and I hope that Members will support its inclusion.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 11 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 12 - Imposition of extra conditions in certain cases

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

Tim Loughton: Again, I am keen to tease out a bit more detail. Under subsection (3),
“A person who brings, or causes another to bring, a child into the United Kingdom is guilty of an offence if any condition required to be met by virtue of subsection (1)(b) is not met.”
I want to come back to the subject of private fostering. What would stop a prospective adopter bringing a child into the country on a temporary basis, having not progressed the adoption process in the child’s original country? If that child were allowed out of his host country, what is to stop someone bringing him here on a temporary basis? Would that still constitute an offence, even though the adopter had not gone through the adoption process, which has then been curtailed because the country has been banned?
On the basis that such individuals get through immigration because the thoroughness of checks at the port of entry is left wanting and they then disappear into the ether, the child would effectively be brought up in a private fostering arrangement, because the prospective adopter could not complete the formal adoption arrangements. Alternatively, and more likely, traffickers are bringing children into the country, then placing them with private fosterers or frustrated adoptive parents who were not able to  complete an adoption from that country. I fear, as I said earlier, that we could be causing another problem by incentivising the promotion of the trafficking of children for private fostering arrangements. I would be grateful if the Minister clarified either that she is happy that that is not the case or, if it is the case, how the Government will prevent it.

Maria Eagle: The hon. Gentleman is asking what there is to prevent a prospective adopter from bringing a child into the country on a temporary basis and from that ending up as a private fostering arrangement. He did not specify this, but I assume that he means after the special restrictions have been declared.
Tim Loughtonindicated assent.

Maria Eagle: Clause 12 makes it an offence, once the special restrictions are in place, to bring a child into the country from the country to which the special restrictions apply. The hon. Gentleman suggests that the host country, as he called it, would agree the departure. The UK, however, would not have provided entry clearance for the child. The hon. Gentleman suggests that there may be some laxity at ports and the child could be brought in. I am not saying that there are no circumstances in which the child might end up in the country because, as he said, there may be a situation in which it is not picked up at a port. None the less, the criminal offence set out in clause 12 would be being committed.

Tim Loughton: I understand what the Minister is saying, but what is to prevent the Cambodian equivalent of Mr. and Mrs. Smith from bringing young Johnny Smith into Britain on a holiday visa and then offloading the child to a private fosterer? This law will not prevent that child from coming into this country, whether or not the other country is on a banned list. It applies only if that is explicitly for the purpose of furthering an adoption. If the people merely arrive, say “We’re on holiday” and disappear, this legislation would not apply. Is my understanding right?

Maria Eagle: I think that the hon. Gentleman is right about that. My officials will throw something at me if I am wrong, but I have not been hit by anything yet. The Bill is not designed to end private fostering arrangements or to end such arrangements in relation to countries to which special restrictions may apply. That is clear. However, the private fostering regulations would require any such arrangement to be notified to the local authority before and on commencement of the arrangement.
I know that some members of the Committee have long-standing concerns about how well private fostering arrangements work, but those arrangements are being strengthened on a voluntary basis, and the idea is that they may be strengthened further if necessary. We can argue about whether that will happen soon enough or whether it should be done now, but there is no doubt that some arrangements designed to regulate private fostering are in force. The Bill is not designed to do that further than the current law does. I hope that that assists the hon. Gentleman  and that I have answered his question. Clause 12 enables the special restrictions to be enforced by setting out the criminal offences.

Annette Brooke: I return to an earlier point to seek clarification. I appreciate that the Bill does not cover private fostering, but we return to the question whether there will be an unintended consequence. Yes, we are talking about only one country at the moment in relation to the change, but there could be more. Can the Minister address the fear that we might be increasing problems relating to private fostering through some of the restrictions? I suppose that the argument then is that we should deal with private fostering.

Jimmy Hood: Before the Minister responds I want to make an important point: private fostering is not within the scope of the Bill. I hope that I have been generous in allowing discussion, but I am a little concerned that hon. Members are now focusing on something outwith the Bill’s scope.

Maria Eagle: Thank you, Mr. Hood. The clause deals with the creation of a criminal offence, to enable us to enforce the arrangements under part 2 of the Bill. I hear the points that hon. Members have made about private fostering, but I have nothing further to say, in view of what you have said, Mr. Hood. I hope that I have been able to answer all the questions that have been asked, within the leeway that you have given, and that members of the Committee will agree to clause 12.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 12 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 13 - Power to charge

Tim Loughton: I beg to move amendment No. 5, in page 16, line 19, after ‘applies’, insert
‘and in doing so must have regard to the financial circumstances of the prospective adopter’.

Jimmy Hood: With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments:
No. 44, in page 16, line 22, after ‘(1)(b)’, insert
‘and in doing must have regard to the financial circumstances of the prospective adopter’.
No. 6, in page 16, line 27, at end insert—
‘(c)provide a detailed breakdown of what costs have been borne to give rise to the fee.’.

Tim Loughton: Clause 13 is a bit more contentious. We have tabled three amendments to tease out what the Government are trying to charge for. Amendment No. 5 would add the requirement that any fee charged by the authorities must be proportionate and not completely block the prospective adopter from going ahead with the process. Amendment No. 44 repeats that requirement in subsection (3). Amendment No. 6 is on the same theme and would add a paragraph (c) to subsection (4), under which the Secretary of State and the Welsh Assembly may, if they decide to set a fee,  decide whether to charge a flat fee or differential rates, or waive a fee in certain cases; they need to say why. We should like a proper breakdown of the costs that have been borne and that give rise to the fee. We cannot see exactly where the costs will come from and what value-added work will have been done.
I have already mentioned that it costs up to £10,000, typically, for a prospective adopter privately to complete an overseas adoption. That usually involves employing a private social worker to make an assessment overseas, and it is a long and cumbersome process, which can take well over a year. In some cases it can take years. All that the Secretary of State must do is rubber-stamp that application. Not much value-added work will be done.
We asked the Minister about this and one of her officials came up with a ballpark figure of £800 as the charge to facilitate clause 13. It is only reasonable that a prospective adopter who is asked to pay a fee should have a proper tariff and bill showing the work that has been done to give rise to it. I hope—and the Government have suggested—that the fee is intended only to cover costs, and not to make a profit out of international adoption.
We should like amendment No. 6 to result in an undertaking that full details will be provided of how the charges arise. We hope that amendments Nos. 5 and 44 will gain us an indication that the Government will take into account the financial circumstances of the prospective adopter. I can think of cases involving, for example, members of certain Church groups linked to communities in the third world, who want to adopt a child from one of those developing countries. They are people without recourse to large amounts of money. We are not talking about cosy middle-class families making a lifestyle decision to spend some of their money to adopt for whatever reason.
It has been indicated that the Secretary of State could waive the fee if the adoption had a family connection, but we should like some elaboration on other circumstances in which the fee would be waived altogether. We want greater articulation from the Minister on how means-tested the fees are likely to be, although they will not be strictly means-tested, and what the charges will be for.
BAAF has drawn attention to problems with the clause. One of its briefings says:
“It is hard to see why one group of UK residents—prospective intercountry adopters—should be singled out for payment of a fee for the provision of a service such as this. It is disingenuous to argue that this is a service for adults rather than a service to children. The procedures are in place principally to protect children, not to ‘smooth the wheels’ for adopters. Any suggestion that public money should only be spent on safeguarding the welfare of children indigenous to this country is surely repugnant both morally and in the light of international obligations.”
BAAF believes that
“any additional financial burden on intercountry adopters may run the risk of a minority seeking to circumvent procedures, thereby putting some children at risk. It must be borne in mind that the procedures apply equally to those who wish to adopt a relative from overseas, and it could be a grave disservice to some children if the opportunity for family life with members of their extended family were denied them for financial reasons ... Given  this government’s commitment to address poverty issues worldwide, the imposition of this particular charging mechanism seems quite inappropriate.”
We are not talking about a large amount of money, in the greater scheme of things. Some 300 inter-country adoptions are taking place, and we are talking about charging hundreds, hopefully, rather than thousands. On that basis, there seems to be a big disconnect between the cost of domestic adoption procedures and the additional costs that the Government are now trying to impose on international adopters.
These are probing amendments to tease out exactly what charges will be involved and why the Government think that they are justified in charging them, and to get further detail on how people who are not in a position to pay the additional fees will be helped out rather than completely deterred from going ahead with international adoptions that could strongly favour the welfare of the child.

Annette Brooke: I appreciate that the matter was debated at great length in the other place, but questions remain. In particular, does the money not relate to child protection? I find it hard to come to terms with the fact that the money is, or appears to be, loaded on particular individuals. The service is not available only to individuals; it must be part of the service to local authorities, for example. How will it be separated out?
I understand that the average time for processing such applications is 18 to 23 weeks. Obviously it needs to be a careful process, but with such high charges, people have a right to know exactly what they are paying for and what quality of service they can expect. I hope that the Minister will answer during debate on the present amendments.

Beverley Hughes: I do not think that there is anything between us on the spirit of the amendments and what we intend to achieve and the way in which we seek to implement charges. As hon. Members have identified, clause 13 provides a power for the Secretary of State to charge to meet the costs of the administration of inter-country adoption casework. As we have heard, that proposal was the subject of some debate in another place. It was finally acknowledged that it is a matter of prioritising. With limited funds available there is an argument about where those funds should be spent as a priority, and making a proportionately small charge is in my view reasonable in terms of that context of wider priorities.
I have no difficulty at all with the intention behind amendments Nos. 5 and 44, which seek to clarify the Bill’s provision on charging for casework provided by the Department for Education and Skills to inter-country adopters. As we have heard, under amendment No. 5 the Secretary of State would have to have regard to the financial circumstances of potential adopters when imposing a fee. It has already been made clear in the other place that we fully agree with that principle, but we are satisfied that we can and will achieve that goal without the need for the amendment.  Therefore, we do not accept it. However, I will set out the way in which we are going about the matter and what we intend to do.
As hon. Members will see, the clause prevents the Secretary of State and the Assembly from making any profit in charging for those services. That is important because it provides the framework. During the Bill’s passage we have made it clear that only those able to pay should be expected to do so. We have no intention of penalising the less well-off, some of whom may be attempting to adopt relatives from abroad. Although we will not specifically propose to waive for that category of relative, they tend to be less affluent than many inter-country adopters and so would qualify for the waiving scheme that we are proposing.
In the other place, my noble Friend Lord Adonis gave a clear assurance that we intend to set out objective criteria linked to income. We have been consulting on that matter with relatives’ groups and we think that household income is the right benchmark in determining which adopters should be asked to pay a fee. In order for that to occur in practice, the Secretary of State must need to have regard to the financial circumstances of each prospective adopter before a fee is imposed. That means that the amendment is not technically necessary, although I understand that Members want to hear more about the scheme.
Amendment No. 44 simply seeks to ensure that the National Assembly for Wales will also have regard to the circumstances when imposing a fee. We are talking about a regime under which we will take into account household income. We cannot make a profit; nor can we have any cross-subsidy in terms of those who pay the full fee offsetting the cost for others. We will come to a system in which there will be groups of adopters based on their levels of income. The fee will rise proportionately from nothing for incomes under a certain level up to the full fee for those adopters whose household income is over a specific level. That will mean that people on low incomes, where they apply for inter-country adoptions, will probably—I would not want to be held to these figures, because we are still considering the detail—

Maria Miller: Will the Minister give way?

Beverley Hughes: If I could just finish the point it might be helpful to the hon. Lady. Where a household income, for example, is under about £20,800, adopters would pay no fee at all. Under the scheme we envisage, incomes would rise in quintiles—groups of five—until above a certain level the prospective adopter would pay the full fee. We are still working on the details because, as Opposition Members know, the caseworking function has been transferred from London to Darlington. We are still considering the Darlington cost, as opposed to the London cost; we expect the fee to be in the order of that cited by my noble Friend—up to about £1,000—but it has still to be refined.

Maria Miller: I want to press the Minister further on this complex matter, which was debated at length in another place, when Lord Adonis stated that he would publish details as soon as possible. We are grateful to the Minister for expanding on some of the criteria that may be used, but a few matters remain undecided.
Lord Adonis made his statement about publishing the criteria in October, and it is now March. Does the Minister feel that it would be appropriate to proceed with more urgency? She rightly said that in the great scheme of things £1,000 is not a huge amount for the Government to think about, but for the people involved in the procedures who want to adopt, it is a considerable sum. We owe it them to clarify very important issues before the Bill goes any further. I thank the Minister for taking the time to flesh out what is in her mind.

Beverley Hughes: We will publish the details and further consult those groups we have already consulted. We had discussions with the relevant groups before deciding on a broad framework. As I said, we have to revisit some of the initial costings that we used, as they were based on staff in London, not Darlington. The case-working function has moved to another part of the country and we have to ensure that we charge on the basis of full cost recovery—the actual cost, not the notional cost—so we must get the figures right. When we have done so, we will publish them and ask for people’s views on what we propose, and I shall try to ensure that that is done as soon as possible. The scheme is due to start in April 2007, so we have a little time before it is imminent.
Amendment No. 6 raised issues such as the breakdown of the costs that will give rise to the fee on a cost-recovery basis, and I want to reassure hon. Members on that point. It is right that we should provide clear and easily accessible information about charges before they are incurred, which should include information about the method of calculation of the fee, when it may be waived or reduced and what elements it is paying for.
I did not wholly agree with the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham. that the process does not add much value. It is a service not just to the adopter, but to the other country concerned because it provides a validation showing that adopters have gone through a proper process to assure their suitability to take a child. The Government are endorsing that process, having reviewed it and certified that the applicant is someone who is suitable to adopt. It is not just a tick-box exercise; the Government are saying, “Yes, the local authority or the adoption agency that has undertaken the assessment has done so properly. We are assured of its validity and can therefore assure you, the third country, that this person is suitable to take a child.” When it is expressed in that way, Opposition Members might appreciate that the case workers who do such work take it seriously. Other elements are involved, such as, notarisation,  legalisation, translation, and the management of applications through to completion, and couriering to the country concerned, and so on.
The process is not simply a straightforward, administrative, filing one; subjective judgments are involved, and it gives this country’s validation. We must take that very seriously. Having explained that, and given the spirit of the amendment, I hope that the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham will withdraw the amendment because we will provide to adopters what it seeks to do, which is to set out the purpose of the fees.

Maria Miller: The Minister has done a good job of expressing the importance of the service and the added value that she feels is given. I should like to press her a little more on the standard of service. I understand from the notes that I have read that it takes between 18 and 23 weeks to process files that are ongoing, and there was a target to undertake that duty in around 12 weeks, although that changed recently. Will she give us her thoughts on what is a reasonable period in which to expect the organisation to process files in order to reach a good standard of quality, particularly when such a fee is payable. The people who participate may require more detail on the matter.

Jimmy Hood: Order. I am listening to a speech not an intervention.

Beverley Hughes: I perfectly agree with the hon. Lady. As I was stressing, the quality of decision making in the validation process is important, but so is the quality and standard of service that we offer. I am aware that some cases took an unacceptable time last year—about 26 weeks I think. I agree that that is unacceptable, but the service is in the process of being re-engineered; the move to Darlington is part of that process. We have committed ourselves to setting a benchmark of between 10 and 12 weeks for cases in which the documentation is in good order and no serious omissions or issues must be pursued that will take some time.
I understand that in recent weeks the times have fallen to between 10 and 12 weeks, so we are delivering the standard of service that we set. That has been part of the improvement in the whole service, and we want to see that as a norm for relatively straightforward cases in which, as I said, there are no serious omissions or problems with the documentation.
I hope that my comments have reassured Opposition Members. We are with them on the spirit of the amendments and intend to ensure that that is delivered through the way in which the charging scheme is implemented. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will withdraw the amendment.

Tim Loughton: I am grateful for the Minister’s elaboration, which was certainly useful. I am also grateful for her comments on the quality of service. As my hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke rightly mentioned there have been lapses in the past, and if people are expected to pay for a service, it should be a decent one.
I am slightly in the dark about some matters; it is my fault if I missed this in the Minister’s explanation, but is she indicating that, subject to final guidelines being published, which has taken rather a long time, prospective adopting families on an income of less than £20,800 would not be expected to pay the fee, but that the service would be subject to full cost recovery? Let us say that about 300 such international adoptions take place each year, and that the service will cost £800, although that figure has probably gone up since I was given it. If we multiply £800 by 300, we get £240,000. If 299 prospective adopters are all on salaries of £20,800 or less, will it fall to the one lucky person who earns £21,000 to pay the complete bill of £240,000 in order for the Department to recover its costs?

Beverley Hughes: Full-cost recovery relates only to the maximum that can be charged to any individual. It is not full-cost recovery across the whole service, so those who receive a degree of waiver on the fee will be subsidised by the Department.

Tim Loughton: That will come as a great comfort to prospective adopters who find themselves just above the threshold. Effectively, the Minister is saying that the Department may subsidise on the basis that some lower-income families or Church groups may seek to adopt. It is helpful to know that.
The Minister said that the Department is prevented from making a profit, but the staff running the Department have all been shipped off to Darlington, which is apparently much cheaper. However, I am grateful for her answers. The amendments were probing, and the Minister has given us much of the detail that we required. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

Ann Coffey: I understand that the charge is an administrative fee. In fact, the major cost of applying for intercountry adoption is the cost of the home study report, which I gather is about £5,000 a year, and it is paid to the local authority. I am not clear whether local authorities apply some test of affordability when they ask for that fee. When applying the affordability principle, will the Minister consider extending it to home study costs, particularly for families applying to adopt a family member living in another country, which is a cross between domestic adoption and foreign adoption. I think that we have traditionally seen that as a cost to the adult. It would be helpful if the Minister considered how the home study report fits in.

Tim Loughton: Before the hon. Lady sits down, and to give the Minister time for in-flight refuelling, I can say that I made inquiries of my local authority when we were considering the Adoption and Children Act 2002 and found that it charged about £1,750 for the home study pack. Surrey, next door, charged nothing, and other authorities charged £5,000 or more. There is  a postcode lottery, with local authorities having the autonomy to decide whether to waive the fee. Nothing in the Bill levels that out, which may be a weakness.

Ann Coffey: Obviously, the clause is not directly concerned with the cost of home study reports, but when I started working in this area in 1988, it was left to the local authority to decide what to charge. At that time, it depended on the priority that the local authority gave such matters. Some authorities simply did not like intercountry adoption and imposed a high charge—not to recover the costs but to discourage people from applying. If we are to introduce a new charge, this might be an opportune moment to consider what has been happening with charging for home study reports in general.

Beverley Hughes: My hon. Friend is very experienced in these matters, and I am sure that she knows the answer to her own question, which is that the situation is extremely variable: some local authorities charge nothing and others up to about £5,000. This is part of the whole package of fees an adopter has to pay. Indeed, there are often considerable charges from the country concerned. With an adoption from China, for example, the fees add up to another £3,000. It is a considerable undertaking.
I do not have any plans to put constraints on local authorities or to decree some central yardstick or benchmark for charging. Local authorities have decided matters for themselves for a long time, and it is right for local charges to be determined locally. With those clarifications, I hope that hon. Members will be satisfied that clause 13 should stand part of the Bill.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 13 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 14 - Other amendments relating to adoptions from abroad

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

Annette Brooke: On Second Reading, I raised an issue on which I should have liked to table an amendment. Foreign adoption of UK children was discussed at every stage in the other place and reached the point at which there was a possibility of a way forward. Obviously, the protection of children is paramount, and I appreciate why we have restrictions. The only channel for requesting an easing of those restrictions is the High Court. I should like an easing of the requirement for a 10-week domicile of the child with the parents from abroad. There are many reasons for that, and I understand them entirely, but in a few cases where the child may have foreign connections, it can be an insurmountable barrier.
I genuinely want an answer on this. The last time the matter was raised, Lord Adonis said that it would be looked at further, that there was perhaps a need for suitable flexibility to deal with very unusual cases, and that there might be an opportunity for the Government to introduce some amendments on Report. Is that being considered, in which case I need not engage my thought processes in writing amendments myself, or are the Government still thinking about it?

Tim Loughton: I have been drawn back to proceedings on the Adoption and Children Act 2002. Subsection (1) substitutes “twelve” for “six” in section 83 of that Act. Remarkably, that very amendment was tabled in the Standing Committee in 2001. I thought that the hon. Lady would mention it because it was tabled by the hon. Member for Romsey (Sandra Gidley), who I thought would be a member of this Committee and who could therefore have taken credit for being so prescient as to predict five years ago that something would not work. In response to that hon. Lady’s suggestion of extending the period to 12 months—in amendment No. 159—the then Minister, the right hon. Member for Redditch (Jacqui Smith), said:
“Extending the period to 12 months would not increase our chances of catching those leaving the country for a short period in order to adopt. However, it would increase our chances of catching those who legitimately choose to go through the adoption procedures in the country where they live.”—[Official Report, Special Standing Committee, 6 December 2001; c. 479.]
With that clarification she asked the hon. Member for Romsey to withdraw the amendment. What has changed over those few years, so that the Minister was wrong and the hon. Lady was right, as supported by us?

Beverley Hughes: I appreciate that the issue of the 10 weeks and the circumstances in which UK children may be adopted abroad in foreign countries were of considerable debate in the other place. I was surprised not to see amendments to similar effect here.
With the situation as it stands under the 2002 Act, which is what brought the change from the previous position to the 10-week period, what we want is a trial period to consider whether the relationship between the prospective adopters and the child is likely to be stable and lasting. That seems to be an essential component of the process, providing information to the courts about whether the making of a lasting adoption order is in the best interests of the child. As members will know, the local authority prepares a report to the court setting out its opinion on the likely  success or otherwise of the placement. That is a minimal required position to try to ensure that the proposed arrangements are going to work for the children.
Such a route is slightly more onerous than the previous court-order route, although less onerous than the six-month cohabitation period. For safeguarding, which the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole said at the outset was her overriding principle, we have come to the settled position that the 10-week provision is right, striking the balance between safeguarding children and having a requirement for adopters, which, while important, is not over-onerous. We have concluded that we will keep to the current position, particularly on the safeguarding issue.
The hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham asked what had changed since the amendment was debated some years ago. The argument, to which my noble Friend Lord Adonis alluded in the House of Lords, if I remember the debate correctly, is that we feel that there have been some cases in which people are circumventing the six-month rule who would be caught by a 12-month rule. We have had some cases of UK residents adopting children, then leaving them in the care of a person in another country until the six months have passed, in order to avoid meeting the conditions. Members may ask why we have 12 months and not another period, but there is a balance, as with everything. We know that in certain cases the six-month rule is being circumvented by people with the wherewithal to do so. Twelve months discourages people from circumventing the restrictions.
While attempting to strengthen the legislation, I recognise that no system can be watertight. However, we believe on the basis of evidence put before us over recent years that we cannot leave the six months. We have to raise the bar somewhat and, because of cases that we are aware of, we propose 12 months. It might have been better to do that when the amendment was proposed some years ago, but the thinking then was based on evidence at the time. We have now considered the issue more closely and believe that cases are getting around the system, so we feel that we must tighten it. That is why we propose 12 as opposed to six months. I hope that hon. Members are reassured and will accept that clause 14 should stand part of the Bill.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 14 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Further consideration adjourned.—[Mr. Cawsey.]

Adjourned accordingly at five minutes to One o’clock till this day at Four o’clock.